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Well for reference: "The current lit capacity of the Southern Cross Cable network is upwards of 5.4 Tb/s, while the Hawaiki cable between NZ and Hawaii is 10 Tb

Well for reference: "The current lit capacity of the Southern Cross Cable network is upwards of 5.4 Tb/s, while the Hawaiki cable between NZ and Hawaii is 10 Tb/s. Together with upgrades planned soon, this comes awfully close to Starlink’s worldwide system capacity, quoted to be 23.7 Tb/s worldwide or somewhere between 15 and 20 Gb/s per satellite. Except that Australia and New Zealand between them have a population of just over 30 million — and a lot of CDNs with a local presence. But there are billions of unconnected and under-connected users out there waiting for service." https://blog.apnic.net/2021/06/11/leo-satellites-part-4-why-direct-to-site/ https://blog.apnic.net/2021/06/11/leo-satellites-part-4-why-...

Robotbeat 4y ago
Yeah, the new satellites being announced here have about 100Gbps apiece. They want a constellation of 30,000, have been approved for around 7000 so far IIRC, so they’d have 700Tbps total (less than that usefully as most will be over water). But they plan on another big upgrade by about a factor of 3 with Starship, which should bring aggregate capacity to 2Pbps. This will be most useful for places like Hawaii as the satellites will otherwise be idle, so will have lots of space capacity. There are also competitors like OneWeb (smaller, but still useful) and Kuiper (not yet running, but potentially a comparably sized project, a project of Amazon’s), so this is just getting started.
- shaklee3 4y ago
  This is a really poor way to compare. even with cross-links about 30% of their bandwidth is useable in the best case. starlink has no way of increasing capacity to their heaviest demand areas besides launching thousands more satellites. fiber is much, much, much more efficient.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    I consider about 20% of the aggregate bandwidth to be usable (the land area vs total area of the Earth), but in special cases like Hawaii, there’s potential a huge amount of bandwidth since Hawaiians can have access to some of this 80% otherwise-unused portion.
    - shaklee3 4y ago
      Sure, but the problem is that the places you might have high bandwidth might already have good access to internet. Hawaii in general has very good internet already, so asking them to pay a premium for satellite internet isn't always a good trade.
      - Robotbeat 4y ago
        That’s not necessarily the case. Hawaii has limited bandwidth and higher latency.
- martin8412 4y ago
  Starship is vaporware.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    Let’s place a bet on it. By the end of 2025, there will have been more successful Starship orbital flights than SLS orbital flights.
7e 4y ago
Total international Internet capacity is 997 Tbps, according to Google. If they need more, though, they’ll presumably add more wavelengths to existing fiber. That puts Starlink at about 2%.

Robotbeat 4y ago

Yeah, the new satellites being announced here have about 100Gbps apiece. They want a constellation of 30,000, have been approved for around 7000 so far IIRC, so they’d have 700Tbps total (less than that usefully as most will be over water). But they plan on another big upgrade by about a factor of 3 with Starship, which should bring aggregate capacity to 2Pbps. This will be most useful for places like Hawaii as the satellites will otherwise be idle, so will have lots of space capacity. There are also competitors like OneWeb (smaller, but still useful) and Kuiper (not yet running, but potentially a comparably sized project, a project of Amazon’s), so this is just getting started.

shaklee3 4y ago
This is a really poor way to compare. even with cross-links about 30% of their bandwidth is useable in the best case. starlink has no way of increasing capacity to their heaviest demand areas besides launching thousands more satellites. fiber is much, much, much more efficient.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  I consider about 20% of the aggregate bandwidth to be usable (the land area vs total area of the Earth), but in special cases like Hawaii, there’s potential a huge amount of bandwidth since Hawaiians can have access to some of this 80% otherwise-unused portion.
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    Sure, but the problem is that the places you might have high bandwidth might already have good access to internet. Hawaii in general has very good internet already, so asking them to pay a premium for satellite internet isn't always a good trade.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      That’s not necessarily the case. Hawaii has limited bandwidth and higher latency.
martin8412 4y ago
Starship is vaporware.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  Let’s place a bet on it. By the end of 2025, there will have been more successful Starship orbital flights than SLS orbital flights.

7e 4y ago

Total international Internet capacity is 997 Tbps, according to Google. If they need more, though, they’ll presumably add more wavelengths to existing fiber. That puts Starlink at about 2%.